I'm a drummer who owns a guitar which I do not play well. This blog is a chronical of my guitar playing experience with Rocksmith.
I mostly play a Michael Kelly Valor II with coil-split humbuckers and a Fender MIM Telecaster (and a few others). I play on XBox 360/Live using a wireless transmitter. My kids play, too (Fender Squier Strat and Washburn/Lyon LG115) and I'll cover some of their Rocksmith experiences if they can ever stay un-grounded long enough to use the XBox.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

I've never had much use for the guitar unlocks that you get for completing Rocksmith events, but I've now collected all 46 of them. On XBox platforms, that qualifies you for the ironically named "Art and Functionality" achievement badge.

My only beef with the whole guitar-collecting effort is that it's not really artistic and it's totally non-functional. The guitars look cool, but it's not like you can really look at them after you earn them. You have to go to Amp Mode and drill down a menu level or two and then you can scroll through your collection. Who's going to do that? And, why? They (Ubisoft dev's/the software) need to add the guitars to the wall of the rehearsal room as you earn them. At least then you can see your accomplishments. You can "equip" yourself with any of the guitars you've earned and the guitar neck will sort of show up while you're playing, but the only reason to do this is if you have a preference for a certain type of fret markers.

Anyway, I've got all 46 guitars now. 46 events played. 46 invisible guitars earned. I might make a list of them one day if I get bored, but I don't think it really matters. I'll still play events because I enjoy the events, not because I got a virtual guitar for playing them.

I have not collected everything there is to collect, however. I still have 19 guitar tones and 34 bass tones to collect. (Not sure about bass guitars. . . I haven't played bass in months.) Some of the DLC songs come with tones, which is cool! (I have a list of Real Tones posted by song title here.)

Event 46 went down as shown. 107% of minimum RSPs, all songs above MQS, and no encore. I rushed into it and failed on my first try. High and Dry (Combo) is what killed it. It was prequalified and I hadn't played that one for ages. I just forgot some of the chords. I ran through it in rehearsal mode once and played the event again.

I had to work on Rebel Rebel a bit to qualify it. That's a very tricky little string-skipping riff, with a couple of mini-chords thrown into the mix. There's also one single spot where there's a one-note variation on the otherwise incredibly repetitive riff. This song makes for a good exercise.

The SSB has appeared in my last 3 events. I guess it'll keep showing up until I get the score closer to 70k or 90k. MQS on this one was 32,000. Every time I get this one in an event, I beat the MQS by about 2k and the next time it shows up on a setlist the MQS goes up by about 5k. At the rate I've been progressing on it, it'll take about 12 more events for it to finally go away for a while!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

[This post was written in March of 2013, prior to the release of Rocksmith 2014, so it only covers songs available up to that date. The songs ranked in this post are still available as DLC or can be downloaded from the original Rocksmith game.

I am working on an updated post on this subject now, but due to some changes in Rocksmith 2014 I'll have to update my "difficulty" calculations.]

About this time last year I posted a highly unscientific ranking of Rocksmith songs from easiest to hardest. Since then Ubisoft has put out a TON of new DLC and I've bought a lot (but not all) of it. My original list seemed to be very popular, so it's time for an update with new DLC included.

Where the original rankings changed since last year, I've noted the original ranking. Chord arrangements are still shown in italics. (** = Songs that I've Mastered)

Easy: (Easiness Scores of 80 and up, starting with Easiest Songs and Going Up in Difficulty)

OK, obviously there's something missing from my calculation, but I admitted this from the start. There's no way Hit Me with Your Best Shot is the hardest song on RS. It's not even the hardest song for me on RS. The Star Spangled Banner isn't all that difficult (so far), either. I suspect one of the flaws in my calculation is that mastery levels affect a lot. Sometimes it's easier to play some songs when you level them up. Sometimes not. But, I still think as a general relative indicator, this sort of works. Just ignore obvious flukes in the ranking (like Hit Me with Your Best Shot).

How I Did It
Basically, I divided my highest score on each song by the number of times I've played the song. Then I multiplied that result by the my best accuracy percentage. Finally, I multiplied the whole mess by the amount of my longest note streak. To make the numbers more digestable, I divided by 100,000 and rounded to one decimal place. The higher the value, the easier the song.

Score = ((HS/PC) x %max x NSmax)/100,000

I have this formula loaded into a spreadsheet where all my high scores, high note streaks, and max accuracies are summarized from the individual spreadsheets I keep for each song.

Note: I had to restart my journey last Fall, so the Play Count used on this new ranking is not a true indicator. I have played many of these songs many more times than what is reflected in these calculations. You'd expect these songs to rank easier this time around, but they don't. A few songs "appear" easier, but note that five songs which were ranked "easy" last year are now ranked "medium."

Songs That Aren't Included
Like before, I've only ranked the songs I've actually played. (Duh.) There are several songs and alternate arrangements of songs in the original RS song list as well as a bunch of DLC which are not included here because I still haven't played every arrangement of every song. Also, there's a lot of DLC that I just don't like and have never bought.

I also omitted alternate arrangements of some songs when the arrangements are very similar. For example, on songs like Angela and Surf Hell once you learn the combo arrangement you pretty much know the single note arrangement and vice versa. No point ranking both.

Originally I left out a few songs that I have played a lot for fun. Surf Hell and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen fall into this category. Since I had to restart my whole journey last September, the high play counts on those songs aren't high anymore. The rating is still a little skewed because I obviously levelled these songs up easier than before, but I'm including them this time. (See above.)

Chord Arrangements
Chords are generally easy for me, but my equation doesn't take that into account. If you aren't comfortable with chords, just ignore the chord arrangements in this ranking and look at the rest of the list. Chord Arrangements are identified by italics.

I have most of this info in my spreadsheets, but I've never bothered to extract it into a list form. This one is ABC by artist/band. Eventually I'll resort the list by song and possibly cross-ref by tone name. Probably will post this as a page for easy reference/access - but don't hold your breath. I've been busy!

For now, here's the original work as posted by Ubisoft user DJdarkness73 (with a little help from his - and a couple of my - RS friends):

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Now that I've unlocked the last Secret Squirrel song, I've just got two more guitars to earn and playing events will be just for the glory of all those screaming cloned fans. Since I can't piss and moan about not getting second encores any more, I've decided to focus on individual songs. And so I bring you the first of my Rocksmith Song Review posts -

When I'm With You - Best Coast

This song is deceptively difficult. It's very easy to play but very hard to get a great score. Even the combo arrangement is mainly chords, but trying to level this song up can be aggravating. The trick seems to be getting the timing down exactly, especially on the intro. Forcing the mastery level up in Riff Repeater helps. There are several strum strokes missing from the lower mastery levels which makes it difficult to hit things at the right moment. Forcing the mastery up to 100% in Leveler makes it a little easier to get credit.

Moving back and forth from the 3d fret G-chord to the E5 at the 12th fret can be tough if you aren't good with chords. The C5 and D5 aren't so bad, but dropping to a proper G-Maj. at the 3d fret requires some quick movement and accurate fingering.

There is a solo, but it's one of the easiest solos in RS. All on the 3d and 4th string, mainly the 4th, and pretty much all on two frets. No double-stops (or "harmonic intervals"). My kind of solo!

I've played this song 13 times (possibly a handful of times before I restarted my journey but not many) and have it up to the maximum qualifying level - 90k. My high score is 93,368.

Despite having all levels maxed (with a little work in RR), I haven't Mastered this one yet. I believe this is one of those songs that is so easy to play that RS made the scoring really tough.

Plug in Baby - Muse

Another fairly easy song, but there is a fairly tricky riff to it. It's not really hard to learn, but it's hard to get up to speed. It moves fast and it sounds really cool. Learn it and impress your friends!

Most of the song is chords - easy chords: Bm, F#, G, and D barres. And, plenty of rests.

No solo. So, once you get the riff down pat you've pretty well got this song nailed. I really like this song. Fun to play and sounds harder than it is.

I wouldn't classify it as "easy," but maybe "medium" on my ranking of RS songs.

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Took me 43 events to finally unlock the last Secret Squirrel Song. But, I finally did it. I didn't cheat and I didn't game the game. I just played the events that came to me and did the best I could. I've played several events where I felt like I deserved the encore but didn't get it and it all boiled down to this a fairly ho-hum 2-song event at The Mouse Hole with a Master Mode encore.

MQSs for Event 42 were mostly maxed out at 90k, so I didn't expect to get an encore. I'd only played I Got Mine twice before I worked it up for this event - once as an encore and once in Event 7. (Never played it at all in my original journey.) It took 3 plays to qualify it at 80,200, and I unlocked the Grizzlytone tone on my second play. Wheels was new DLC. I just bought it in February and had only played it twice. Oddly, the MQS for Wheels was really low - 30,600. Best of You was already pre-qualified at 90k from a previous event and I didn't even rehearse it for this event.

I actually did alright. I had 107% of the Event Minimum Score and I beat the MQS for every song. But, as expected, no encore. Like I said, I didn't really expect one, but I can't help wondering why I didn't get one. The more I study it, the more random the whole encore thing seems to be. No biggie. I was pretty pleased with my playing and with my progress on these songs.

Since it was still early and things were going so well, and since the next event had only 2 songs, I decided to go ahead with Event 43.

Event 43 and the Big Double Encore!

Not sure why the RS set-list generator only threw a 2-song event at me. This was the shortest event I've ever played. I've got plenty of songs that are still down in the sub-70k range, and my events have been averaging more like 6 or 7 songs lately, but that's what RS Recommends gave me.

I'm not sure why RS chose these two songs, either. I had Surf Hell up over 90k already and even Unnatural Selection was up to just over 70k before this event. Kind of funny - Surf Hell has always been one of my favorite RS songs and Unnatural Selection has always been one of my least favorite RS songs.

And, while this turned out to be a HUGE event for me in other ways, it took place at the smallest possible venue - The Mouse Hole. So, only a few dozen people witnessed this crowning achievement.

I wouldn't say I exactly kicked ass on the setlist. I had Surf Hell down pat before I had to restart my journey, but I only beat the MQS by 4k. MQS for Unnatural Selection was 75k and I got 88k. That's what pushed me to 111% and got me the first encore.

The icing on the cake is this: my first encore was a Master Mode encore. Fortunately, of the nine songs I have mastered, Angela was the one I got. Sheer luck. By subtracting all the other scores from my final event score I determined that I scored 185,665 on the Master Mode encore - more than I needed for the whole event. Apparently good enough for a second encore.

Ironically, my second encore was Good Enough. The song Good Enough, by Tom Petty. Of course, once the second encore comes up, it doesn't really matter what you do. You could just unplug and go get a beer and you'd still get the Secret Squirrel Song. I had played this song only once before as an encore in Event 19, but I scored a respectable 76,198. Good enough. . . to unlock the Sugarcane tone.

Until this event, I hadn't unlocked anything except guitars since Event 30.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

I haven't been practicing much lately. Just too much other stuff going on. But, last night I finally managed to rehearse a few songs for Event 41 and play the event. It did not go very well.

I actually qualified 3 of the songs on this setlist immediately after my last event two weeks ago. Walk was prequalified since I scored over 100,000 on it in the previous event. Last week I managed to qualify the remaining three songs in one evening. I took a reduced qualifying score on America's Suitehearts (from 68,200 down to 64,787 after 5 tries). Then I didn't played my guitar at all for a week.

So, it's not like I had played any of the songs for this event much. In fact, I'll tell you exactly how many times I've played each.

Walk: 4 (prequalified from previous event and not played since)
Dance, Dance 11 (6 to qualify for this event)
Thnks Fr Th Mmrs 9 (4 with some Riff Repeater work to qualify for this event)
My Hero 10 (5 to qualify for this event)
Times Like These 7 (3 to qualify for this event)
I Don't Care 6 (2 to qualify for this event)
America's Suitehearts 9 (5 to qualify for this event, with reduced MQS)

Since I hadn't played any of these songs for at least a week and some of them not for 2 weeks, I ran through them before I started the event last night, even though all the songs were already "qualified."

On Walk, Times Like These, and I Don't Care, my score in "rehearsal" went up. On all the others, my scores were down. On America's Suitehearts, my rehearsal score was below the MQS (minimum qualifying score for the event). But, I decided to go for it. The show went just about like rehearsal:

On Walk and I Don't Care, my scores continued to improve. My score on America's Suitehearts actually improved, too, although my score in rehearsal had dropped below the qualifying score. On everything else, my scores went down when I played the event. On two songs, Dance, Dance and My Hero the event scores were below MQS. That's a little weird because those are fairly easy songs.

At any rate, I finished the event "successfully" enough to get the Gibson Firebird-V with Maestro Tremelo. But that's it. No encores. Nothing.

In the past I've gotten encores with as little as 105% of the required minimum points on an event. I got an encore in Event 20 with exactly 107% of the required minimum RSPs, and I got an encore on Event 19 with only 105% of the minimum RSPs. However, I suspect that having two songs below MQS in this event was what stopped me getting even a first encore.

My theory here doesn't prove out completely because on Event 17 I exceeded 90k (the maximum qualifying score) on 3 songs and exceeded the MQS of the 4th song by almost 200%. My total event score was 114% of the minimum required RSP and I still got no encore. However, it seems generally to work out that you've got to get at least the minimum event score and score more than the MQS for each song to get a first encore.

Maybe Rocksmith is secretly processing input from my new Kinect sensor to determine when I'm just not really into an event. . . I have to admit, I went into Event 41 mostly with the attitude of, "Let's get this over with and move on." So, I really didn't deserve an encore.